Proverbs 27:1 Commentary and Bible Study

The next two proverbs address the subject of boasting. Solomon looks first at boasting about future opportunities and achievements, and reminds us of the lack of integrity that is always involved just because we do not know what the future will bring. The word rendered ‘bring forth’ is the normal word for giving birth; tomorrow gives birth to events and outcomes that are too hard for anyone to predict with certainty. The boaster says he will do this or do that, and lays out ambitious plans that draw attention to the wise choices he makes and the great skill with which he directs the course of his life, but the truth is very different. He claims to have total control over things which the modest man admits are in the hands of God alone. As James says also, ‘You know not what shall be on the morrow.’ The man or woman of faith has a quite different approach to life and recognises his limitations. The self-confident claim to know what they cannot know, and act as if they possessed powers which no mere human being ever had. This is so obvious that they lack credibility even in the eyes of the world. In this example Solomon has chosen a case where the foolishness of boasting is particularly clearly exposed. The boaster always claims what he is not entitled to claim, whether it be knowledge, achievements, attributes, but in this case he claims to have what no one ever had: control over the future.The right approach to the future is to recognise that God alone knows what a day will bring. He alone can prepare us to face the evils thereof. Therefore by prayer we face each day, asking for strength and humbling ourselves before our sovereign Ruler. In his perfect wisdom he will bring what we need to fulfil his individual program of training for each one of us. He will bring comfort, lessons, trials, judgments according to our needs. At the same time he will keep his plan on track in order to fulfil all prophecy and bring about those great landmark events which help us to know roughly where we are in his timetable. But to boast about what we will do with any certainly and not to submit the future entirely into God’s hands is vanity.